Dancer Archive

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Dreamland wrote:

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Isleh wrote:

Baciacca said that he won't be effected by the elimination of looping macros. Not leaving it to rest as just an idle boast,I've been testing and I think he may be right. Using an alias to string a bunch of / commands together and then a single, non-looping macro, I can keep my character from loggong out for a full day (server up to server down) doing a Flo every 30 seconds.

Using a couple of aliases and macros, I think it would be possible for him to create several huge macros that could keep a buffbot going for several hours If not a full day.

Sooooo......

We've all used macros to keep us from auto logging out. What I think SOE needs to do and we as players need to accept is to stop macros from stopping us from going auto afk and then auto logging us out. That way, superlong macro & aliases or looping macro cannot prevent a buffbot from logging out unless the buffbot owner takes action ATK.

I've got my timer set for 30 min.. That should be long enough and if it isn't, then maybe I should log because obviously, Iam needed elswhere.

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Those are all things that came up in the discussion before and Panthu brought to the devs attention. The very first thing the buffbots did was saunter in quite proud of themselves talking about how they already had it all worked out.

They don't already have it worked out, because noone even knows how they plan to fix it yet. It is all based on assumption.

Speaking of asumption no we have not all used a macro to keep us from logging out. Just like we have not ALL afk'ed at some time.

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When I post, I am not writing a legal document. I assume that the person reading is either intelligent enough to see that there are exceptions and accept them orthey are notworth the effort to try to convince.

Needless to say the tongue was cut off.

• More than one player.


• Game is geared toward interaction with players not NPCs


• you do not have to Role Play but the very fact that the character is not you means you are.

The creation of a bot is the creation of a NPC. The continued creation of player NPCs creates as well an atmosphere of a single player game wherein one has the freedom to do and say as he/she pleases. This atmossphere breeds the treatment of others as NPCs, as objects and commodities. No one likes to be treated as such. Entertainers have not been given well treatment for a long time. We were hurt by the Jedi grind and now bots. Each time we were looked down on. THe grind brought people to hate the entertainer professions because of AFK and poor attitudes in the cantina. People often commented at how they hated grinding it because of how long it took and having to rely on others for xp. They complained more about it than all the crafting professions, ranger, and CH combined. Now we are treated as commodities to be bought and sold (hmm isn't that slavery?) by a community that wants buffs now. THey are not willing to do that extra bit of work to find a master dancer or musician. They are unwilling to try to get missions done without buffs, or even think about it. Missions can be done without buffs. It is called grouping.

We are plagued by a combat community that is heavily "playing a multiplayer game as a single player game with observers." Therefore the creation of bots in the cantinas, AFK hunting, and bad attitudes all around. The day I see a cantina full of live happy people again will be a good day. I wasn't here for release, but I imagine it will be like release all over again in the cantina.

It would come to no surprise to me that the people who encourage bots will treat anyone they purchase things from as a bot in real life as well. It is not just the creation of bots but this mind set that needs to change. Not everything needs or can be at your beck and call. There are only 2 real life professions that I expect something like this from: doctors and cops, yet I do not expect them to drop everything to come running to me. Yet in whatever job I am in I find myself having to deal with people who believe they are better than me. They firmly believe that the "customer is always right." My thinking is that that statement is wrong. My customers are not always righta and in many cases have been wrong. They are not always right because that would mean they are better than me for I am not always right.

A quick note on role playing. Everyone in this game role plays whether they want to or not. They do not name there character after themselves. THey are not all human, and if they are they do not look like that in real life. Because it is not them, underling character traits of these people surface. They would not treat a musician like a robot in real life would they? Or would they earn 10000 dollars in 20 minutes by killing someone? Would you the reader purposely slander another as seen on thisthread, other message boards, and ingame or other games in reallife. Because of total anonimity people act the way they truly are.

It will be a good day the bot disappears. For those of you who want an entertainer whenever you want I say, "too bad, so sad."

Message Edited by Dreamland on 11-15-2004 11:52 AM

It won't really a big problem for SOE to track them down once the in-game macro system is fixed. There will be plenty of Live Entertainers and othersto /report theLAMers & buffbots.

Message Edited by Tralmek on 11-19-2004 02:47 PM

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WormWorm wrote:

Why does everyone want to make SoE waste all their time trying to hunt down AFK dancers while they could be making actual improvements to this game? Even if you remove recursive macros people will use third party programs which will cause SoE all sorts of problems trying to track the macroers down.

Instead of getting rid of recursive macros, just do that whole dancer interaction thing where the watcher has to tell the dancer which flourishes to do in order to get a buff. If this is the case, I think its fair to say buffing shouldnt take over a minute... Afterall, it only buffs 1 stat, where doctors can buff 6 in less than 10 seconds with havli at higher stats for longer periods of time.

Personally I think SoE should just give it up, give us all perminant buffs on all 6 stats and apologise for screwing up the game by making us take 20 minutes before we play just getting buffs in order to compete with other players. If they do ever get rid of buff bots, I will be screwed. Noone plays on wanderhome after midnight, I have no idea where I would get my buffs. I think I would just have to go ahead and quit the game, because I cant play during the day and theres noone to buff me at night. I use doctor bots and dancer/musician bots for my buffs, then to a solo group leader bot for a sologroup. I hardly see any other players online at night- the few who come on are definently not doctors or entertainers.

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I agree that all buffs should die a horrible death, however alot of players like them. Whats more SOE seems to like them.

It was SOE's idea to get rid of recursive macros, not for entertainers either i might add. Combat and looting macros played a far bigger part than any entertainer issue ever did. This is their idea of a blanket way to deal wit all unatended play at once. I think its a good one.

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Dreamland wrote:

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WormWorm wrote:

Why does everyone want to make SoE waste all their time trying to hunt down AFK dancers while they could be making actual improvements to this game? Even if you remove recursive macros people will use third party programs which will cause SoE all sorts of problems trying to track the macroers down.

Instead of getting rid of recursive macros, just do that whole dancer interaction thing where the watcher has to tell the dancer which flourishes to do in order to get a buff. If this is the case, I think its fair to say buffing shouldnt take over a minute... Afterall, it only buffs 1 stat, where doctors can buff 6 in less than 10 seconds with havli at higher stats for longer periods of time.

Personally I think SoE should just give it up, give us all perminant buffs on all 6 stats and apologise for screwing up the game by making us take 20 minutes before we play just getting buffs in order to compete with other players. If they do ever get rid of buff bots, I will be screwed. Noone plays on wanderhome after midnight, I have no idea where I would get my buffs. I think I would just have to go ahead and quit the game, because I cant play during the day and theres noone to buff me at night. I use doctor bots and dancer/musician bots for my buffs, then to a solo group leader bot for a sologroup. I hardly see any other players online at night- the few who come on are definently not doctors or entertainers.

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I agree that all buffs should die a horrible death, however alot of players like them. Whats more SOE seems to like them.

It was SOE's idea to get rid of recursive macros, not for entertainers either i might add. Combat and looting macros played a far bigger part than any entertainer issue ever did. This is their idea of a blanket way to deal wit all unatended play at once. I think its a good one.

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Isleh wrote:

From what I've been reading in the smuggler forum, Buffs are going to be nerfed in the combat upgrade with spice giving the biggest buff because of the downer. Of course, I'm insertinga disclaimer because SOE may decide on something completly different.

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Now that's interesting...

I had this theory that the sizes of buffs roughly was meant to correspond to some kind of "cost" /benefit thing about how hard it was to make or get the buff:

TIER ONE: Doc Buffs

( Player with Skill set to apply + Rare Resources Crafted into Goods + Need to be in Certain Locations to apply)

TIER TWO Ent Buff And Chef Buffs

Ent: (Player with Skill Set to apply, 2 dift prof required + Certain Location to apply )

Chef/BE Food ( Rare resource crafted into Goods, 2 dift prof required to make, portable buffs, but stomach size limits applications)

TIER THREE: SPICE BUFF

Spice (Easy resources used to make, portable but has downer cost)

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Padtai wrote:

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Isleh wrote:

From what I've been reading in the smuggler forum, Buffs are going to be nerfed in the combat upgrade with spice giving the biggest buff because of the downer. Of course, I'm insertinga disclaimer because SOE may decide on something completly different.

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Now that's interesting...

I had this theory that the sizes of buffs roughly was meant to correspond to some kind of "cost" /benefit thing about how hard it was to make or get the buff:

TIER ONE: Doc Buffs

( Player with Skill set to apply + Rare Resources Crafted into Goods + Need to be in Certain Locations to apply)

TIER TWO Ent Buff And Chef Buffs

Ent: (Player with Skill Set to apply, 2 dift prof required + Certain Location to apply )

Chef/BE Food ( Rare resource crafted into Goods, 2 dift prof required to make, portable buffs, but stomach size limits applications)

TIER THREE: SPICE BUFF

Spice (Easy resources used to make, portable but has downer cost)

Now over time, players found a way around the cost of finding a player who had the skill set to apply the 9 stat buffs through just getting their character without the player (automated play). And that basically did away with half the "cost" of those buff (or for entertainers, pretty much all of it except the skill point sink). And as well, players got really efficient at harvesting and crafting so that chef/doc buffs were mass produced so much so that the "rare" resources didn't hold most people back from basically being buffed with the best whenever they wanted. So especially with solo groups pumping as much cash as people wanted into the system, most players quickly got to a point of being able to afford being buffed constantly.

So maybe the devs looked at all this and decided the only way to balance the overpowered buffs was to makepeople rely on the one kind of buff where the "cost' in combat is clear and can't be avoided no matter how good your AFk macros or guild collection activites are--spice has downers. Its a very different model for buffs than what we have now, and it displaces 5 professions (be, chef, doc, musician, and dancer) toimplement it.

I know there are those who picked up entertainer, BEor doctor just to be a buffer, but I think there are plenty of people who feel they wanted those classes for more than that. Can't say the same for those who picked Chef--it is mostly a buff making class, though I guess they would have different buff types than spice still. So I'm not sure exactly what the devs will do to make sure the affected classes aren't too badly affected. But maybe, they won't do anything. Maybe their thought is to just increase the buff spice gives as an offset to a time when they shut down the automated buffs and the "player skill set to apply" cost becomes significant again. So where people used to go to a bot, they'd now go use spice, but still have need for a live player when one was around since there'd be no downer. Or maybe they're deciding to get rid of all player skill set buffs....who knows.

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PoetDancer wrote:

But the thing that makes creative industries work is the principle that the "creative" aspect and the "industry" aspect are free from the other's influence in the day to day decision making. Certainly one influences the other. The "suits" give the creative folk a budget. The "creative" folk give the "suits" something to sell. But you'd be suprised how little one actually advises the other. I'm sure that the creative folk do not determine how the suits should retain subscriptions, and I'm sure the suits don't influence the artistic and coding functions, unless its some sort of legal matter.

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Actually Sirii as a development manager for a company (not gaming) I can tell you there is a lot of interaction. The marketing suits do all kinds of surveys, etc. to find out what features are in demand and pass this down to the development team to design and implement. This is why the Jedi push, the statement that 50% of the player base wants to be one. This is clearly marketing feedback and not development feedback.

No the development staff doesn't worry about what will sell, they are told what will sell and then go off to implement it. A development manager of a significant level has stated that AFK is hurting the game. That same information is also coming from marketing surveys and marketing's reaction to public perception. So if SOE feels that removing all the secondary AFK accounts from the game is good then they feel it will be offset by retaining accounts and growing new accounts. All the claims of players about SOE finances and how much they will lose from these secondary accounts is just so much rhetoric because only SOE suites know the real answer and they aren't sharing that level of detail. However the commitment from what appears to be Sr. development management clearly says that SOE feels that removing AFK will help not hurt the financials.